Copyright © 2011 by Sarah Stegall
A Gifted Man
CBS, Fridays, 8/7PM
“Pilot”
Written by Susannah Grant
Directed by Jonathan Demme
Warning: this review contains some spoilers. If you’d rather not know what the episode is going to include, bookmark this page and read it after viewing.
“I have all these things to finish, all these doors I left open. I need you to help me close them.” —Anna
Right there is the problem with this show. I want to like A Gifted Man, as much for its stars as for its premise. Patrick Wilson (Phantom of the Opera, Watchmen) plays Dr. Michael Holt, a driven, robot-like neurosurgeon specializing in diseases of the rich. Multiple Tony Award-winner Jennifer Ehle (The Adjustment Bureau, Pride and Prejudice) plays his ex-wife Anna, whom he runs into after several years apart. They embrace in a parking lot, he invites her home for dinner, they talk and reminisce. Then she leaves. The next morning Michael discovers that Anna actually died two weeks ago. So with a premise like that—a ghost returning to visit her ex—we might reasonably expect that her presence will involve some, oh, supernatural events. Or, if that’s not on the menu, at least she can help Michael with some tricky aspect of his life—a difficult diagnosis, supernatural intervention in an operation gone wrong, some exhibition of ghostly powers. Instead, it appears that the only reason Anna has entered Michael’s life is so she can get him to help her tie up a few loose ends. Of all the reasons to haunt one’s ex, this has to be the most selfish. There’s nothing in this deal for Michael—more importantly, there’s nothing in this deal for us, the audience.
“Who says I’m happy?” —Michael
Don’t get me wrong: I have no problem with the premise of a ghost who is visible/audible to only one person. I wrote a novel like that myself. Rather, my problem is that Anna does not add anything to the world she now inhabits. She seems to be there merely to function as Michael’s long-dead conscience; as the show’s marketing tag puts it, she’s there to “make him a better man.” The tricky part will be to get the audience to care enough about the man Michael is now to stick around long enough to care about who he’s going to be. And in that respect, CBS stumbles badly. In the first place, though Michael may be a yuppie prince, and tries very hard to be a jerk, it doesn’t come off. He snaps at his sister for failing to restrain her rebellious son—but makes sure to pay her rent. He fires a medical tech for a mistake (that might have cost a man his life)—and then turns around and fights desperately for the life of a selfish wastrel. He understands, better than most, what drives a young tennis star to ignore symptoms of an aneurism—but makes sure he is the one who carries out delicate surgery on a penniless young boy. In short, he’s not the monster he needs to be for Anna’s influence to have much effect. She should be shoving him into situations that challenge his idea of himself, but all she really does is nudge and hint, and that’s enough to motivate him. So where is the test, the trial? The conflict?
“Why can’t I be the one thing in life you don’t understand?” —Anna
Anna is not really here for Michael, although that is the idea the promos are pushing. But everything she asks of Michael is for her: help my clinic, help my patients, help me close doors. She’s also not well defined, in supernatural terms. Every series with a ghost in it has to establish the “rules” at the outset: who can see the ghost, who can be affected by it, and so forth. Our introduction to Anna is confusing: she’s so real to Michael that when they meet, they embrace and he detects nothing wrong. She presumably actually eats when she’s at his apartment. Later, at the end, she rests a chin on his shoulder. So clearly, physical contact is possible. Why can’t Anna type in her password herself, then? We know that no one else can hear or see her; several scenes include her, Michael, and other people who clearly are unaware of her. Can she affect nothing else in the world but Michael? There’s effect here, but no cause.
“Hey, man, you sterilize your way, I sterilize my way.” —Anton
Matters are not helped by the inclusion of stock characters. Michael’s ditzy sister Christina (Julie Benz, No Ordinary Family) and her wayward son Milo (Liam Aiken, Road to Perdition) are stock characters. So is Christina’s buddy Anton (Pablo Schreiber, Weeds), a self-described shaman who talks about “tears in your energetic body” and attempts to “extract” Anna from Michael, as though she were a tumor. The scenes of Anton chanting and drumming are painful to watch. He offends not only Michael but the audience when he tries to link his ad hoc spiritualism to Michael’s actual practice of medicine. Bill Irwin’s (CSI) turn as Michael’s playboy friend and patient Ron Vinetz adds a little comedy to this otherwise bland mix, but succumbs all too soon to his own hedonism, giving Michael yet more reason for being robotic and gloomy. (And raises the question: will Michael now be able to see Ron’s ghost as well as Anna’s?)
“There is logic, there are rules! You follow them!” —Michael
One cannot ask for better casting. Patrick Wilson is a master at establishing character with a blank expression, a glare, a sneer. Jennifer Ehle is luminous as always, conveying warmth, love, and humor with her eyes alone. Emmy winner Margo Martindale (Justified) shines as Michael’s motherly, snarky assistant, Rita, who holds Michael’s schedule and life together. These world-class actors bring subtlety and depth to a script that has none. Wilson and Ehle even manage to pull off disconcerting acts, such as when each of them looks directly into the camera for a speech, breaking the fourth wall. This sort of thing induces mild discomfort in a lot of viewers, probably because it is an attempt to force an intimacy not yet established between audience and character. Ehle and Wilson almost make it work. Watching them was like watching professionals slumming in a high school play. In fact, the whole setup reads like Blithe Spirit meets House, with a bit of Touched by an Angel thrown in. If you like sappy melodramas in which the lost find their souls, this may be right up your alley. Me, I like a little more scary thrown in with my ghosts, or a little more actual usefulness.
“This is a cosmic gift!” —Christina
Executive Producer and head writer Susannah Grant has more experience in romance than urban fantasy. Her credits lean heavily towards romantic fantasy (Pocahontas, Catch and Release, Ever After) than ghostly fantasy. Her excursions into drama rely more on character than plot (Erin Brockovich). Clearly she’s aiming at the softer side of the imagination, not the scary side. Director and Executive Producer Jonathan Demme’s credentials in horror are rock solid: Silence of the Lambs is a classic. But he brings to this ghost story the same sensibility he displayed in Rachel Getting Married, rather than the ethereal visitations of Beloved.
“We’re sending you away.” —Michael
Viewers didn’t see A Gifted Man as all that gifted, either. The premiere finished with 9.3 million viewers, a 1.4 rating. This was lower than the fourth-season premiere of Fringe, on a smaller network with a smaller audience. The 8:00PM slot on Fridays is tough for any show, let alone one without an established audience. Maybe CBS is banking on the audience that stays home on Fridays, looking for something comforting and simple. If so, this show may have a shot at replacing Touched by an Angel. But it will never be Ghost Whisperer or Medium.